Is Donald Trump 2024 Worth The Fight?

Donald Trump was a great, if imperfect president.  By the third year of his presidency the country was flourishing.  The economy was roaring, jobs were up, incomes were up, gas prices were down and America & Americans were doing fairly well. 

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election.  The swamp struck back via Covid and the George Floyd protests.  Neither of those was of Trump’s making, but both were utilized by Democrats to steal the election. The Democrats didn’t create Covid or put Floyd in the morgue, but they used the lockdowns and the riots to sufficiently upend American life that they could steal the election under the cover of chaos. 

Those were tests and Donald Trump failed.  With Covid he allowed the country to be misled by a snake oil salesman and with the Floyd protests he didn’t send in the troops.  It’s easy to understand why he failed, however.  Anthony Fauci had been playing a role in America’s various health crises for decades and was an internationally respected doctor.  As the media was hyping the idea that the virus could wipe out mankind, Fauci was a voice of calm, reassuring the country that with distance, masks and lockdowns we would persevere.  At the same time, when Trump raised questions about anything that diverged from the Big Pharma / media narrative or suggested we should remember the economic costs of lockdowns, he was attacked, lampooned, and vilified unmercifully.  Given the fusillade facing him, it’s not a surprise Trump couldn’t recognize the lies the American people were being served.

On the George Floyd inspired Antifa / BLM riots, Trump failed, and that’s on him, although again, one can see why he acted the way he did. Section 252 of the Insurrection Act “permits deployment (of military troops) in order to “enforce the laws” of the United States or to “suppress rebellion” whenever “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” make it “impracticable” to enforce federal law in that state by the “ordinary course of judicial proceedings.””  Essentially he could have utilized the military to stop the violence that cities were unwilling or unable to stop.  Trump knew this, saying in early June 2020:  "If a city or a state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them."  He was pilloried by Democrats for even bringing up the idea with Pelosi stating: "But there is no reason for the U.S. military to be called out for this." 

Trump chose not to likely because he knew Democrats would brand him a tyrant or dictator if he did, despite the fact that FDR, Kennedy, LBJ & Bush 41 used troops for far smaller riots. Democrats did so regardless. 

That Donald Trump failed at leading the country through those two disasters is sadly, understandable.  Given the savagery and breadth of the relentless attacks on him, it would have taken someone just short of Zeus to have succeeded. The result of that failure was the theft of the election and the end of his presidency. 

Fast forward two years.  In November Trump announced he was running and he said many of the right things, starting with "In order to make America great and glorious again. I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”  Possibly the best line of the night was "But just as I promised in 2016, I am your voice. I am your voice. The Washington establishment wants to silence us, but we will not let them do that.” 

That all sounds great, but the question is:  Has Trump learned the hard lesson… that the swamp is the Terminator, it will not stop, it cannot be negotiated with, the swamp knows no parties or limits and it must be crushed, otherwise it will kill him, kill his supporters and kill the Republic of the United States?

Recent events seem to suggest that he has not.

First, he endorsed Dr. Oz over a rock solid MAGA candidate in Pennsylvania.  Oz was anything but MAGA and went on to lose to a literally brain damaged Democrat. Trump made other MAGA endorsements, but Pennsylvania’s one of the most important swing states in the nation and he blew it.

Next, in December he endorsed the decidedly not MAGA Kevin McCarthy for Speaker despite the fact that there were a variety of MAGA candidates in the running.  McCarthy in 2021 stated "I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election." That’s true, except for virtually every single MAGA voter in America, and 70% of the larger GOP as well.

Then later he threw his most ardent supporters, the pro life movement, under the bus, stating "It was the "abortion issue," poorly handled by many Republicans…that lost large numbers of Voters." He continued "Also, the people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the U.S. Supreme Court, & just plain disappeared, not to be seen again." That was completely unnecessary, and wrong to boot. Next he quizzically invited the biggest dolt in Congress, Senator Lindsey Graham, who actually proposed a nationwide abortion ban less than two months before the election, to be with him on his first campaign event!  Most Republicans despise the war monger and big spending Graham, behind only McConnell and perhaps Collins, Murray & Romney. 

Then, finally, despite six years of failure, he supported the grifter Ronna McDaniel to lead the Republican Party over the incomparable super lawyer and MAGA candidate Harmeet Dhillon.  If there was ever anyone in the Republican Party who should’ve been ousted, who should’ve been replaced by a dyed in the wool grass roots MAGA candidate, it was McDaniel. She spent over $2 million of party money on luxury travel and private jets, $300,000 on flowers, $75,000 on “beauty and spa treatments” and $1,280 on LBGTQ+ filings! All while undermining MAGA.  She is the antithesis of the grass roots, MAGA voter.  She is the polar opposite of the farmers and plumbers and police and truckers and steel workers who put Trump into office in the first place and the ones who recognized the coup.  They’re the 50,000 people who filled stadiums and were in the trenches with him.  But McDaniel and the establishment loathe them.    

If Trump circa 2024 hasn’t figured out that success lays with the grass roots MAGA voters who put him in the White House rather than the establishment grifters who lead the party today – with his help – then I’m not sure what the motivation is to support him is. And just in case anyone is under the illusion that this is written by some Never Trumper, let me dissuade you of that notion.  In November, before most of the above occurred, I wrote this:  "Trump may tell off-color jokes and may not always be the best judge of character, but he can take the heat, and his North Star has always been prosperity and security for the American people. Given the literal evil the Democrats are seeking to impose on America, I’ll happily follow him into the fire."

2024 is too important a moment in American history to let serial failures like the establishment McFailures McConnell, McCarthy and McDaniel lead the way.  This election may well be the last opportunity for Americans to rescue the nation from a Democrat party that has turned our cities into dystopian wastelands, turned 40% of American children into gender confused lab rats and seeks to balkanize the nation based on race and sex and anything else they can think of.  The goal of the swamp is power and it knows no party.  McDaniel & Co. are its GOP arm and if Trump doesn’t recognize that then the baggage that comes with supporting him isn’t worth the fight because with those charlatans leading the way, come Jan 20, 2025 there will be another Democrat being sworn in.

Man of Character - Ted Cruz

On Wednesday night Ted Cruz addressed the GOP convention in Cleveland. At first I was a bit disappointed as I was hoping for a masterful dismantling of Hillary Clinton on the biggest stage of the campaign. While he hit her, it seemed almost perfunctory. But upon reflection, he did exactly what he should have done in terms of articulating the principals of freedom, limited government and opportunity. Particularly given the fact that Donald Trump is the GOP candidate and those ideas will likely not find much airtime over the next four months.

Of course none of that really mattered. The only thing that mattered to those on the floor, those in the box seats and those in the media was “Will Ted Cruz endorse Donald Trump?” He didn’t. And as a result much of the GOP establishment, erstwhile conservatives and virtually the entire universe of talk radio hosts have proclaimed his political career over. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, we’ll have to wait and see.

But what we won’t have to wait and see is what courage looks like. Ted Cruz went into the lion’s den and came out not only alive, but clearly in possession of his principals. Near the end of the speech, as the boos became so loud and the crowd was (intentionally) stirred into a frenzy, I couldn’t help but picture one of those countless scenes between the two world wars when Winston Churchill stood in the well of Parliament and warned of the coming storm. He was called a war monger. He was called a trouble maker. He was said to be an old fool. And most of that was from people in his own party!

If one has ever seen video of the raucous debates in Parliament, you can imagine what it was like for Churchill to stand there withering the slings and arrows yet continue to speak his piece. So too was it with Ted Cruz. The Trump inspired crowd would very much liked to have tarred and feathered Cruz had they been able to get to him. They did what they could to intimidate the Texas senator, but he continued with his message, suggesting those in the hall and those at home vote their conscience.

And that is perhaps the single most telling part of this entire farce. Ted Cruz was not telling anyone to vote for him or not to vote for Donald Trump. No, Ted Cruz talked about the party, the constitution, liberty, freedom and he suggested delegates and viewers should vote for the person who they thought would uphold their vision of those things. When someone tells you to vote your conscience and you think they’ve insulted your candidate that tells you much more about you and your candidate than it does about the speaker.

Finally there is the pledge. Ted Cruz did indeed make a pledge to support the nominee. He, along with the rest of the contenders vowed to support the nominee. And he meant it. Do you for one moment think that if Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal or Ben Carson were the nominee he wouldn’t have supported them? No doubt he would have, with bells on. When he made that pledge, he had every intention of fulfilling it.

But here’s the thing. Pledges are not written in stone or blood. Think about it… How many Americans have been divorced? When you marry you promise to “Love, honor and cherish till death do us part.” That’s a pledge… yet somehow almost half of marriages end up in divorce. Does that mean the bride and groom were lying? Absolutely not. They meant it, but things don’t always work out as planned. A pledge is not a golden ticket for the other person to do whatever they want. That pledge does not give a husband carte blanche to sleep with half the women in his office and it doesn’t give the wife the right to abuse the children. The pledge that people make to one another at their wedding assumes a relationship within the normal bounds of acceptable behavior… it’s not an iron clad contract for life that remains in effect regardless of what the other person does.

And so too is it with Ted Cruz and his pledge to support the nominee. Cruz had every intention of supporting the GOP’s nominee when he made it. But then Donald Trump personally attacked both Cruz’s wife and father. Yet Cruz was somehow still supposed to pledge his support. If that’s the case, then one wonders what exactly Trump could have done that would have been sufficient to persuade his supporters that breaking the pledge was warranted? “Stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot people”? What if he had been indicted for fraud associated with Trump University but hadn’t yet been tried? What if it became known that Trump was having an affair? What if he had announced that he was once again pro abortion or wanted to restrict the 2nd Amendment? None of those things happened of course, but which of them, if any might have been a sufficient rupture to allow someone to break their pledge.

For some Americans there are lines in the sand that should not be crossed. Others may have no lines or their lines are fungible. Ted Cruz does have a line and Trump crossed it when he targeted Heidi and Rafael. The fact that Trump has navigated his way through the dysfunctional primary system and come out on top does not make up for the means he pursued to arrive there. Actions, as they say, have consequences, and Donald Trump very much took the low road and lost the endorsement of Ted Cruz as a result. Despite that, Ted Cruz more than fulfilled his promise by taking the stage in Cleveland and talking about Republican values, freedom and the Constitution, then suggesting that voters look to their consciences to vote for the person most likely to defend them. He even explicitly stated that Hillary Clinton would not. That he didn’t kneel and kiss Trump’s ring, and the fact that his refusal has so incised Trump’s team tells you everything you need to know about Donald Trump and his supporters. It is not winning that animates them, it’s obedience. At the end of the day, Donald Trump wants rule the nation and Ted Cruz wants to lead it. The GOP voters have made their choice, now we’ll see how that choice plays itself out on the national stage.